Woman seen licking ice cream in viral video faces up to 20 years in jail, police say

[Astro]

A woman filmed licking a tub of ice cream and returning it to a grocery store shelf in a viral video last week is facing up to 20 years in prison, police said Thursday.

The footage — which has been viewed more than 11 million times — shows the so-far unnamed woman opening a container, running her tongue across the ice cream then laughing as she places the violated dessert back in the freezer, in a branch of Walmart in the city of Lufkin, eastern Texas.

Police said on Wednesday they believed they had identified the suspect after "detectives had obtained surveillance video placing a woman matching the suspect description in the Lufkin store on June 28 around 11 p.m." They are waiting to finally verify her identity before issuing an arrest warrant.

Police also want to speak to the man she was with, who is thought to have filmed the incident and can be heard encouraging the woman to “lick it, lick it.”

She could face a second-degree felony charge of tampering with a consumer product, the Lufkin police department said in an email statement to NBC News. The charge comes with a two- to 20-year prison term and up to $10,000 in fines, according to Texas state penal code.

Investigators are also in discussions with the FDA and additional federal charges could be made.

"Our detectives are working to verify the identity of the female suspect before a warrant is issued for her arrest on a charge of second-degree felony tampering with a consumer product,” a police spokesperson said.

“As that portion of the investigation continues, detectives are focusing on identifying the male (in the green shirt) behind the camera seen in images of the two entering the store together.”

Police added that detectives will continue to work through the Fourth of July holiday on the case.

The search to determine exactly where the incident took place sparked an investigation spanning from San Antonio to Houston, police said on Facebook.

Blue Bell Creameries, the local manufacturer of the ice cream brand the woman licked, has called the incident a "malicious act of food tampering."

All tubs containing the mix of creamy vanilla ice cream with swirls of chocolate fudge and dark-chocolate-covered roasted peanuts have been removed from the store's shelves as a precaution, the company said. The specific carton believed to be compromised was found among the lot.

In an earlier statement, the company explained that its cartons are frozen upside down in production, which creates a natural, tight seal by freezing the lid to the tub, meaning consumers would notice if any tampering occurred upon opening a fresh tub.

Source

 

[ydng]

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[Whisky23]

Wonder if the woman is an Ariana Grande fan?

 

[Kami]

Meanwhile Ariana Grande...

 

[Astro]

Wonder if the woman is an Ariana Grande fan?

Ariana paid for the donuts she licked

 

[Whisky23]

Ariana paid for the donuts she licked

"It is not clear at this time if the affected donuts were disposed of or sold to another patron," a police statement said.

Ariana Grande apologizes and explains doughnut licking | CNN

As backlash mounted following a video in which the singer appears to lick doughnuts in a Los Angeles shop and saying she hated America, Grande apologized.

edition.cnn.com

 

[abra]

What she did was stupid, disrespectful, disgusting and possibly dangerous but 20 years is too much.

 

[Cha0sTasTiiC]

20 years!?

america is a very strange country... how is this woman getting 20 years for licking ice-cream and a rapist gets a 6 month jail sentence?

obviously the whole country isn't like that but i keep hearing of cases like this happening in the US and it always makes me scratch my head...

murica

 

[BlueNose]

that's absolutely disgusting, i hope no one bought that icecream. good thing i dont live in that state

20 years!?

america is a very strange country... how is this woman getting 20 years for licking ice-cream and a rapist gets a 6 month jail sentence?

obviously the whole country isn't like that but i keep hearing of cases like this happening in the US and it always makes me scratch my head...

america has some wonky laws smh

Wonder if the woman is an Ariana Grande fan?

asdfghjk lmfaoooooo

 

[ydng]

murica

lol didn't realise it was independence day oops-

 

[Cha0sTasTiiC]

lol didn't realise it was independence day oops-

well they surely stuff it into one's face xD happy independence day to the superior north american country :tea1:

 

[rektinq]

isn't 20 years a bit- much-

 

[SM's Kunta Kinte Silence]

20 years? That's insane. Meanwhile a judge somewhere wanted to go easy on a guy for rape because he's "from a good family". This is why people don't take America seriously.

What she did was absolutely gross, but nowhere near deserving of 20 years. Hell, if I were her I'd go out and commit a real crime, do something illegal that I've always wanted to do if I'm going to to jail anyway.

But at least this will deter other folks from being gross and doing that kind of thing.

 

[cagedhearts]

she deserves some sort of punishment but damn...20 years?!

 

[Jihyo StoleMyHeartAYAYAY]

 

[Chomiczewska]

This was not what I was expecting after reading the title, I though it would be some weird ass ice-cream licking, but it turned out to be more "normal" let's call it like that
But 20 years for that is ridiculous, actually going to jail at all for that is too much, she should just do some community work and maybe pay a fine

 

[sexy cutie]

that's disgusting. but damn 20 years. meanwhile rapists and drug dealers get community service

 

[Starfire]

I think the reason why she's going to jail for that long is because she had the flu (and said she wanted an epidemic) when she licked the ice cream. Someone could've really gotten sick all because she wanted to be famous.

 

[Durazno]

Ok the fact that she apparently had the flu too makes this x10 nastier than it already was

 

[Starfire]

I don't think they really went too far. Someone could've died because of this.